Day 1 - IFA International

NEWS Finding New Ways to

NEWS Finding New Ways to Keep People Moving Seven new TomTom products feature at IFA 2016 TomTom wooed IFA in 2015 with the launch of its Spark GPS sports watch, and is back at the world’s leading CE show to empower movement and facilitate smarter decisions on the go. Patrick Stal, Director of Marketing for TomTom Sports, talked to IFAInternational about the design and development of its latest innovative products. He began by detailing the broad range of new TomTom smart devices to be launched at IFA this year, and the move into unchartered market categories. At this year’s IFA, TomTom is launching seven products, including two in entirely new categories. TomTom VIO is the world’s first navigation device designed specifically for scooters, while the TomTom TOUCH is the world’s first fitness tracker that combines body composition analysis with steps, sleep and all-day heartrate tracking, right from the wrist. How is TomTom evolving in the market today? TomTom is a very different company now and we are operating at the cutting edge of technology with big commitments to autonomous driving and smarter cities. Our maps, traffic and navigation are used by many other companies: car manufacturers use our technology; governments and third parties license our data; and leading technology companies such as Apple and Uber also use our technology. We also have the largest Telematics business in Europe. We continue to innovate for consumers as you can see from all the products we’ve launched here at IFA. TomTom’s autonomous driving innovation seems to be just around the corner. Please tell us more. Autonomous cars need a highly accurate 3D map to be able to function, and TomTom is already leading the way with this technology thanks to two revolutionary products: HD Map and RoadDNA. Combined with other sensing equipment in the car, these products enable vehicles to locate themselves on the road, even at high speeds. Since its launch, we have signed WE ARE OPERATING AT THE CUTTING EDGE OF TECHNOLOGY WITH BIG COMMITMENTS TO AUTONOMOUS DRIVING AND SMARTER CITIES … a number of partnerships with car manufacturers and suppliers to evaluate this technology. The initial results confirm our expectations: the TomTom approach is both robust and rapidly scalable. At TomTom, autonomous driving is happening today. How are your distribution channels evolving? As our product portfolio diversifies, so does our distribution strategy. From specialist sports retailers, through to mass-market consumer electronics online retailers, it’s a blend of traditional and new distribution channels. What are your key aims at IFA this year? This is actually TomTom’s tenth year at IFA. Our ethos is to empower people to get going with innovative products that are easy-to-use for everyone. We disrupt categories and democratise technology. And that’s what people are going to see from us at the show. We’re building on our heritage: 25 years of heritage, in fact, where we’ve been investing in the right technologies, innovating non-stop, creating life-changing technologies. Our business is in an exciting stage of growth and we have been diversifying over the past years. We believe that people will be excited to see the new products that we will be revealing – which includes a few surprises! How important is IFA as a platform to communicate what you are up to today? IFA is an important platform for us. It’s our tenth year at the show, and we’re already looking forward to our eleventh. Patrick Stal Director of Marketing, TomTom Sports Hall 4.2 Stand 111 www.ifa-international.org IFAInternational • Friday 2 nd September 2016 31